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Teaser by Jan Brogan: Review

Hallie Ahern is a journalist in Rhode Island, who comes upon a possible story while hanging out in an online chat room. She finds a teaser video of two young girls cavorting on a beach. The video promises more before it fades out. Hallie starts an online conversation with one of the girls. It soon becomes apparent that this girl recruits others for these online videos which men pay a subscription fee to watch.

When one of the girls goes missing and another dead, Hallie finds that there is much more to the story: drugs, organized crime and men with twisted desires. Pretty soon it's not just about the story for Hallie; lives, including her own, hang in the balance.

Teaser by Jan Brogan is a solid thriller with a technological twist. Brogan taps into the fears of parents regarding their kids and the internet. She also explores the disconnect between teens and parents and how some kids fill the void with expensive stuff. One girl is willing to sell her dignity for a pair of shoes.

Hallie is an interesting character. While her job is important to her, she struggles with the moral issues of teens and the videos. Should she go straight to the police and risk being fired? At times, I thought she was rationalizing and putting off doing the right thing, especially since her boyfriend is a prosecutor.

I enjoyed Teaser right to the end. The pacing was good with quite a bit of action towards the end. Even though this is the third Hallie Ahern novel, and my first experience with the series, I had no trouble following the plot.

And to Alyce and Bermudaonion - I had a high school student work with me so I could get the whole teen/social networking stuff right, and was lucky to spend a day with an undercover cop who helped enlighten me about cyber criminal minds.

i love love love this genre and have been on the lookout for some fresh titles. thank you so much--this one sounds really 'edge-of-your-seat', which i love! i would have never picked up this book without reading this review. yay!

Thanks for the great review, I had read something before (I think it may have been a McLeans article) about teen/tween girls using internet chat/video to get gifts from people. The statistics and interviews were scary and unbelievable. Happy to see my library has a copy of this book!

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